The Book of Obscura
by Dashiell Mirai
Summary: In an old, dilapidated room, deep within the Mirror Reality, Faceless Neil tosses and turns in his sleep. Above the ground, on the hills soaked with cold rain, the Mad Masque Troupe is racing towards the town of Red Rivers. A storm is coming. Something approaches.
1. Enter the Ringmaster

Colorful cages and carts trundled by, clad in peeling paints in lurid shades. Grey-brown mud splashed onto their worn sides from the rain-soaked path.

Scaly limbs reached out from within the wheeled cages, and hungry mouths snapped within their dark recesses.

A misting drizzle, being the tattered remains of the previous fortnight's downpour, plinked down on the heads of the shambling figures, making dark dappled spots on their tawdry finery.

The sun had yet to rise, yet the sky was already pale grey.

This was a parade of freaks and misfits.

On top of the cart that led the procession, a tall figure with sticklike limbs stood, leaning on a makeshift trailing.

She leered excitedly down at the dilapidated road ahead, the tails of her maroon-and-yellow tailcoat fluttering and snapping in the bracing wind.

She raised the barbed leather whip that lay at her side and lashed out over the railing at the piebald, partially lame horses that strained to keep up the pace.

"Yah! Yah!" She shrieked out into the biting fall wind, which only howled back at her.

She burst into a peal of shrieking laughter, like a madwoman freshly escaped from the asylum.

Her wild mop of hair billowed out from beneath her patchwork top-hat, like a spilled phial of blood. The circus was coming to Red Rivers!

A/N

Ok, yes, that was incredibly short, but it was just a preface! There's more where that came from, to be sure.

Cheers, loves!

-Dashiell L. Mirai


	2. Ellie

Ellie slumped onto the front window in her house, pressing her fingers up against the glass.

Rain, rain, and more rain. What accurate weather to suit her mood!

The savoury smell of her mother's cooking wafted from the kitchen, but she didn't seem to care.

The world now was in grey and white.

Sighing, she let herself slide off the couch, and there she lay at its foot, in a groaning heap of girl and hair.

Her mum came out of the kitchen, stirring a pan of something which she carried.

She looked like she was going to ask what was wrong, but thought better of it and went back to her task.

Ellie managed to wrench herself off the floor, and reach up to the top of her precariously loaded bookshelf to get an old, worn volume.

It was a storybook she had selected (though quite by accident), the sort with lots of pictures.

It was entitled, "The Marvelous Adventures of Miss Fit". The storybook in question concerned the adventures of an enterprising young lady who could talk to ghosts.

She flipped through it, hoping to get a sense of childhood nostalgia, but only felt a faint, sort of nauseous, grief.

She shut the book, set it down on the floor, and closed her eyes.

No tears came.

Mentally, she shouted, "Come on! At least feel something! Just one emotion, I don't care what it is!"

She felt nothing still.

Burying her face in her hands, she went over to the base of the bookshelf to have a quiet sulk.

Her mum came out of the kitchen, carrying something in a round glass dish topped with a golden pastry crust. The whole thing smelled delicious.

Ellie didn't care.

After setting her handiwork down on the table, her mum went over to Ellie and laid a hand (still shod in a warm oven mitt) on her shoulder.

"Honey," she said, "it's time for dinner."

Her daughter looked up at her, with the sadness visible behind the frosted glass of her eyes.

Her mum looked away, and sighed. "Uh, listen, sweetie, I, uh, understand... how you feel."

Ellie didn't have the heart to argue.

"So, uh, I got you something to cheer you up."

Ellie looked up halfheartedly. Between then and the day before, her mum had tried a thousand little ruses to try to lift her spirits.

Her mum rummaged around in the back pocket of her jeans, and came up with two tatty little slips of paper. "I got you tickets to the circus! They're called the Mad Masque Troupe, doesn't that sound cool?"

Ellie tried to smile. She loved the circus, it was true, but she wasn't exactly in the mood. "That's great, mom."

She smiled unenthusiastically and then went back to sulking.


	3. Welcome to the Show

The sound of an accordion rent the hot, popcorn-scented air.

It swelled into a crescendo, then broke into a cheery tune, accompanied by the battering of snares and the scraping of fiddles.

From her perch atop a rickety wooden seat, Ellie's mum tapped her foot to the music.

The ragtag little band playing it was an interesting lot, to say the least.

One of the fiddlers was absurdly skinny, missing a foot, and had a peg-leg in its stead, and the hefty-looking accordionist was tickling the keys with the metal fingers of his false hand.

The drummer, on the other hand, had the sort of beard which must have at least one family of rats living in it.

The music built to a crescendo, then fell into a hush.

The drummer kept up a quiet drum-roll, and a booming voice echoed out from seemingly everywhere.

"Please welcome to the stage... the amazing, sensational, marvelous-tastic... Stella Lunaris!"

The moth-eaten velvet curtain slid aside, to reveal an imposing figure stood upon the stage, arms akimbo.

She wore a ringmaster's tailcoat of maroon, embroidered with mustard-colored stars. Her blood-red hair propped up a patchwork top hat of the same colors as her suit. She surveyed the audience with catlike green eyes over a crazily wide, crooked-toothed grin.

"People of Red Rivers... welcome to my humble abode!"

She stalked around the stage, slowly, like a wildcat.

"This is a display of freakish feats, able acrobats, and all manner of grotesque creatures! A show... of epic proportions, of sparkling, lost treasure, of misshapen monsters, and of fair maidens aplenty." At her last proclamation, she tipped a wink to the audience, causing a few titters.

A hush fell over the crowded tent.

"So welcome into your hearts the lovable misfits of the Mad Masque Troupe, and let the show... Begin!"

The crowd roared, and even Ellie leaned forward in interest.

The band struck up, and the curtain parted for the first act.

The show had begun!


	4. Backstage

Ellie left the show feeling considerably better than she had upon entering it.

She had gasped, cried, and even laughed along with the rest of the audience.

She and her mum stood outside of the tent as everyone left, munching on candied apples. She had forgone dinner, and, as a result, was feeling quite peckish.

Suddenly, her mum seemed to be struck with an idea.

"Sweetie, why don't we have a look around?"

It seemed, to Ellie, to be somewhat of a bad idea.

"Uh, I don't know, they might not appreciate it..."

Her mum grinned dismissively.

"Oh, pshaw! We paid good money to see this circus, and I want to have a look around!"

She took off into the darkness, but turned around for a moment, gesturing at Ellie.

"Come on!"

Reluctantly, Ellie followed behind.

Everything seemed to loom out at her in the dark of night, tent poles turning into the spindly legs of massive beasts, tree branches becoming the gnarled arms of witches. A coyote howled its keening call off in the distance.

In front of her, she heard an "Ah!"

She ran to the sound, and found her mother gazing in awe at a large maroon-and-yellow striped tent.

Gesturing excitedly, she motioned her daughter over.

"Sweetie, look! This scrollwork is amazing! And the style! Oh, it's like nothing I've seen before!"

Ellie frowned, and tugged on her mum's arm. "Mom, I'm sure this architecture is fascinating, but I wanna go home."

Her mum turned around. "Ellie! Where's your spirit of adventure?"

She just adopted a pleading look. "Look, mom, can we please go home? This place... it's just not right."

Her mum gave her a sharp look. "Well. If you want to be that way, then you can wait outside." Without further ado, she parted the tent flaps and was swallowed by the darkness.

Nervously, Ellie leaned against a tree, tapping her foot to the tempo of some frantic, imaginary song.

She took a deep breath, and began to sing a song from when she was young, sweetly as can be.

"Oh, joy has arose, the sun has come again,

to hold you.

Fading out the doldrums of the week..."

She let the sound fade into silence for a moment, then frowned.

Were those footfalls she heard?

A metal hand clamped suddenly over her face. She strained, but couldn't break its (quite literally) iron grip.

Craning her head, she saw it was the accordionist from earlier. He half-led, half-dragged her into the tent, and she saw her mother, tied to a chair and gagged.

Her restraints wriggled to and fro, and, to her horror, Ellie saw they were sharp-fanged, hissing snakes. The lanky snake charmer stood by, looking particularly self-satisfied.

Ellie glared daggers at the accordionist, but she quailed when he leered nastily down at her.

"What've we got here now? A singing skylark, and a thieving magpie, innit?"

He jerked his chin (both of them) at the snake charmer. "Byala, go get Mags, would you? She'll be interested to know who's been mucking about in her tent."

Ellie had no idea who this "Mags" was, but she severely doubted they'd be pleased or lenient.

A few tense moments passed, the only sounds being the chirping of crickets, and the furious pounding of her own heart.

Then, the ringmaster burst into the tent, still resplendent in her circus attire.

She grinned widely, and leered at Ellie and her mum.

"Well! If it isn't two of our patrons, come to see the after-show! Oh, don't worry, we're not out of tricks by half!"

With lightning speed, she drew a wickedly sharp throwing knife from within her coat. Both mother and daughter recoiled in fear.

The ringmaster, Stella, or rather, Mags, burst into hysterical laughter.

"Oh, don't worry! I'm not gonna gut you... yet!"

Ellie let out a small "Eep!" as the knife whizzed past her, narrowly missing her ear, and buried itself in the tent-post.

Suddenly, the crazed woman's expression went dead serious.

"Now. As you've probably gathered, I don't take kindly to others being nosy around my property. Especially since Byala here," she gestured to the snake charmer, "said you were looking at my Book of Obscura."

She waggled her finger like a school-teacher.

"That is not allowed. There is powerful magic in there, enough to break you... or make you king of the world. Got it?"

Ellie's mum nodded, her eyes wide with fear.

"Ok! Well, now that you've got that, time to sentence our miscreants here, hmm?" She took her whip and banged it down like a judge's gavel. "Order! Order!"

She turned towards the accordionist. "Arnold, you said she was singing, was she?"

He nodded.

"How?"

"Well, er, she was singin' all luvverly loike, y'know, real pretty."

She dealt him a crack with her whip. "No, you lunkhead, use terms like a proper human being, not the oaf you are!"

"W-well, she was singing... real sweet, yeah, like a skylark at dawn, so she was!"

Mags grinned, and ceased flogging him. "There. See, that's better."

She brushed her hands together, as if to wipe off imaginary dust. "Case closed." She pulled a crushed velvet armchair out of seemingly thin air, and sat back in it, crossing her legs casually.

"I've come up with a verdict."

Turning to Ellie's mum, she said, "You know, I was originally going to gut you like a fish, and make your daughter a slave, but I've got a better idea."

She clapped her hands. "Byala, release her!"

With a snap of their master's fingers, the snakes slithered away.

"You're free. Go, shoo."

Ellie's mum stood aghast. "B-but... My daughter! You need to let her go, too!"

Quick as greased lightning, the ringmaster shot to her, knife in hand.

"You're in no position to argue. Now, be a good girl, and run along. Or," She motioned to Ellie with her knife, "I'll do something we both won't be happy with."

Her expression softened. "Oh, don't worry. Ill treat her well... enough. You see, I've always wanted a nice singer to complement my bevy of acts. So go. If she's good, I might even bring her back... someday."

With a final, guilt-ridden glance at her daughter, Ellie's mum retreated from the tent.

Ellie stood helplessly, wondering if all this was just a nightmare. The ringmaster turned to the accordionist and said, "Arnold, send for Zaina. Tell her to set an extra bed in her cart."

She then rounded on Ellie.

"Listen closely, girl. My name is Margaret Bludd, but you may call me Miss Bludd, Stella, or simply Sir. Don't give me lip, or I'll cut yours off. Is that understood?"

Rooted to the spot with fear, Ellie nodded.

Margaret rummaged around in a pouch at her hip, and blew some kind of dark green powder in Ellie's face.

Her eyelids fluttered a moment, and she crumpled to the ground, sound asleep.


	5. Gypsy Lady

When Ellie awoke, she was entangled in a pile of blankets. She had a splitting head-ache, and the ground seemed to be moving beneath her.

Extricating herself from the heap of mouldy wool blankets, she rubbed her eyes, and found herself to be in some kind of small, wooden room, lavishly furnished by the looks of it.

The rocking, however, was still unaccounted for. She tried to stand up, and suddenly, the memories of the previous night came rushing back, like a river swollen with rain.

She clutched at her head, and tears sprang unbidden to her eyes. Suddenly, she felt an arm on her shoulder, and smelled a strong aroma of honey and flowers.

She looked back to see a lady, dressed in mystic shawls and veils of lilac and magenta. The lady was, for all the world to notice, quite pretty, with honey skin and almond-shaped eyes, with curious lilac pupils.

"There, there. I heard you had quite the time of it last night, didn't you?"

Tearfully, Ellie nodded.

"Well, things are only going to get better. My name is Zaina. I'm the Mystic of this circus, and I dance sometimes."

She helped the young girl up, steadying her against the rocking. "Try not to mind the movement. We're in a cart, you see, and going quite fast, at that."

She sat Ellie down on a luxurious velvet fainting-couch, and started rummaging through a black bag, pulling out various wicked-looking tattooing implements. "Miss Margaret told me to give you the works, but something tells that just won't do."

She came up with four bags, a phial of water, and a mortar and pestle. As Zaina busied herself with whatever the task was, Ellie decided to pipe up.

"What're you doing?"

"Making henna paste. We can't very well go around giving permanent tattoos to a lady so young, now can we?"

Ellie leaned back on the fainting-couch. "I guess not."

"So what's your name? Margaret said you were a singer, but she neglected to mention your name."

"Ellie. I know it's not exactly as cool as yours, but it's my name."

Zaina paused to add a bit of this and a bit of that to her concoction.

"Nonsense! I think it's a perfectly lovely name. Is it short for anything?"

Ellie craned her neck to try to see what Zaina was doing.

"It's short for Elena... what's that red thing you're adding, there?"

Zaina held up a bundle of red twigs. "Oh, this? It's to make the dye stronger."

She poured the dye into a bag made from oiled cloth, tied the end with a bit of twine, and began to pipe it onto the back of Ellie's outstretched hand.

The young girl watched, fascinated, as Zaina wove an ever-expanding mandala. It was a flower, a wheel, and endless samsara, growing ever more ornate.

"So, what do you want your stage name to be?"

After a pause, she said, "No disrespect meant, but Ellie isn't exactly the name for a grand mistress of the stage, yes?"

The young girl sat marveling at her new artwork. "I guess so."

Zaina gently put her hand back down for her. "No, it's not ready yet, let it dry a moment."

The mystic thought for a moment. "How about... nightingale?"

Ellie looked confused.

"For your stage name. Nightingale. Is that good, or..."

"No, it's beautiful, thank you!"

Zaina stood up, businesslike. "Wonderful! Now, let us get you your costume."

In a whirl of motion, Zaina helped Ellie up, and opened up the heavy antique trunk in the corner. There was a mirror cleverly embedded in the lid, like that of a make-up compact.

From within it, the mystic drew a multitude of colourful scarves and fabrics. She would take one, and hold it to the young girl, only to murmur something about it being the wrong color, and to put it back on the pile.

Then, as she was fiddling about with a blue silk scarf, inspiration struck. She rummaged in the depths of the trunk, which seemed to be a great deal larger within than outside, and came up with a beautiful, midnight-blue saree, trimmed with exquisite silver beads.

Ellie simply gaped as Zaina wrapped her up in the shimmering garment, belted it with a swath of silver fabric, wrapped her hair in a turban of the blue silk scarf, and fastened it with a jeweled silver broach.

The mystic stepped back. "Well?"

Ellie gasped, admiring herself from every angle. For all the world, she looked like a mysterious enchantress, straight from the very make-believe games she used to play. "Oh my gosh! Zaina, it's beautiful!"

The actual mysterious enchantress smiled wryly. "Glad I could be of help... young miss Nightingale."


	6. The Joyride

The first thing Ellie noticed was that the cart was shaking a great deal more than it had been before.

She stumbled over to the divan, currently occupied by a sleeping Zaina, and shook her awake. The mystic rubbed sleep from her lilac-coloured eyes and muttered, "Are we there already?"

"Where? And why are we shaking?", asked Ellie, with a mounting urgency in her voice.

Zaina gave her a kindly smile. "Why, the gate, of course. We're going to need to pass through in order to get to our next destination."

Before she could protest, the mystic woman took her by the hand, and whisked her onto a balcony at the front.

It seemed, by some feat of both haphazard engineering and luck, that the carriage was a double-decker. But in front of it was the most wondrous thing of all- a massive hole in the fabric of reality, just past some hills.

It was a strange portal, full of distorted reflections of things it couldn't be reflecting, a fragmented-mirror kaleidoscope of scenes from both strange and everyday realities.

With a jolt, Ellie realised that they were drawing closer and closer to it. By the time they had reached reality's edge, her knuckles were white from gripping the balcony railing.

She looked down, and saw the hills melting away, being stretched and pixelated and eaten alive by the great tear that she was falling into. The poor, overworked horses pawed aimlessly at a ground that wasn't there, while simultaneously trying to fight the current that was dragging them down into the rip.

The current grew stronger, stronger, and stronger still, and Ellie could see other carriages being sucked down into the abyss, their horses nickering in panic. She shut her eyes, braced for the worst, and screamed-

And suddenly, with a great _oof_ and a jolt, it was over. Their carriage settled, with a bump, on a hillside covered in dusky-purple grass. Occasionally, a little silverwhite disc would form in the black sky, and another carriage would drop out.

Ellie sat down hard, sucking in great gasps of air.

"What," she said between breaths, "was that."

Zaina steadied herself with far less difficulty. "Like I said, my dear, the gate."

"I don't understand. Where are we?"

She helped her young companion to her feet.

"Well. I could explain exactly where we are, and all the transdimensional theory surrounding what the Mirror Reality is, or I could just read the sign."

And indeed, there was a sign, held up by two mouldering wooden slats on the hilltop.

It read, "Welcome to Morteville."


	7. Parallels

For the umpteenth time that day, Neil found himself heavily resenting the fact that he couldn't talk.

Well, and his overall lack of human facial features in general, but specifically that. He still had a voice-box for which to scream, and hands to clench into fists and beat the mattress of his little cot, but no words.

It made all the empty sobbing feel just a bit more meaningless.

He felt that several very large and important things were missing. (He was certain that one of those things was a face.) He remembered certain things, like that this was Limbo, a land between the living and the dead. He couldn't explain why, but he felt that this shouldn't be happening, whatever this was. And then-

Neil turned towards the mirror lying beside him on the bed. Had it made a noise, or was it just his bored mind?

With a whoosh of mysterious energies, out from the mirror came a ghostly black shape. It wound its dark serpentine body around one of the bedposts, peering down at Neil through the sockets of its skull-like head.

-And then there was Manny. He was rather like the "swingin'" family friend you'd been sent to the big city to live with, excepting, of course, his status as an ancient god of life and death. Neil had the distinct feeling he'd known the snake-creature from Before.

He hadn't been in Limbo forever.

That much, he knew for sure.

"Hello, Manny," mumbled Neil dejectedly.

The snake-creature situated himself leaning somewhat over the young boy's shoulder.

"Well, don't you sound cheery as a summer's day."

Neil sighed, ignoring that.

"Sorry. I just want to _do_ something today."

He was quick to follow this with, "Besides going to the bar, I mean."

The ancient Voudon god got off the bed, and began to rummage around in pockets that had seemingly materialised from his skin. "Well, let's see... I could have sworn..."

He paused to eyeball a massive black-widow spider (about fifteen centimetres in length), which he'd pulled from his pockets, shrug, and pop it in his mouth.

He continued to root around, and toss things to the floor, such as an oversize Ouija planchette, a jar of fish eyeballs, a screaming _thing_ , and Shipo, the latter of which crawled up Neil's denim-clad leg, and dug his claws into the shoulder portion of the boy's sweater.

Ignoring this, Manny came up with a colourful wodget of paper, which uncrumpled into two tatty slips. "Now we're cookin'!", he announced with a skeletal smile.

Proffering the little slips of paper so Neil could see them, the snake-god said, "I got you tickets to the circus!", with enough fake enthusiasm injected into his voice that an actress in a commercial for antidepressants would be jealous.

The young boy frowned. Well, he made the general motion of frowning. No-one really noticed, for reasons which are rather obvious, but he made an effort.

"Come on, I'm tryna do something for you here!", said Manny, picking up on his charge's mood. Neil muttered a "Thank You", not because of his funk, but because muttering was his sole mode of communication.

"See, that's better," said Manny, settling onto the bed. "This ain't your average circus, see. It's chock-full of freaks, sights to see, and best of all, broads galore!"

If Neil had eyeballs, he would have rolled them. Foremost in Manny's day-to-day existence, he had quickly learned, were women and drink.

"And," the death-god continued, "It's run by an old friend of mine, the lovely Margaret Bludd. Well,"

He leaned forwards, proffering a conspiratorial wink. "I say friend..."

Neil paused to think about all this. It couldn't be worse than languishing in this dilapidated chamber of his, now could it?

Manny got off the bed, and stretched luxuriously, like a cat. "Well? Watcha waitin' for? Let's go!"

Before Neil could protest, his companion and parental figure (of sorts), grabbed him by his lily-white hand and pulled him through the hand-mirror situated on the night-table.


	8. Powder Puffs and Throwing Knives

Ellie sat back, taking in the chaos of the circus getting prepared for the big show. Freaks, the likes of which she'd never seen, chatted amicably with clowns dressed so brightly, a worker at a day-glo paint factory in the eighties would have thought it a bit much.

Zaina, with a gaggle of young women in belly-dancing costumes in tow, approached. "Ah! How are you, young miss Nightingale?"

One of her compatriots giggled. "Oh! You could do with some make-up, young miss."

Another one observed, "Aye, her costume's looking a little worse for wear. Are you sure that you didn't lend her something from, say, under your bed, Zaina?"

Ellie looked down at her beautiful sapphire-toned saree, rumpled from her taking a nap in it.

Zaina clapped her hands, and her companions stood like a small platoon, with her as their commander. "Ladies, I think it's time... for a makeover!" They smiled, rather ominously, and squealed between clenched teeth.

Before their young victim could back away, they were upon her, holding a mirror in front of her face, beating her face with powder puffs, poking and prodding and tweezing and fluffing and pulling endlessly, until she felt dizzy from all the movement.

Then, they released her just as suddenly, almost dropping her on the dusty caravan floorboards. One of the dancers craned her neck into Ellie's field of view, appearing like a seagull craning over its half-conscious prey.

"Well? How do you feel?"

Dazedly, the girl stood up, and caught sight of herself in a hand mirror, dropped to the floor and shattered in the confusion. With awe, surprise, and no small amount of horror, she said, "Like a princess."

A/N

Well, isn't this some wonderfully useless filler! I honestly don't know what I was trying to do here, but rest assured, you'll get some actual content soon. And by soon I mean tomorrow. I'm going to be doing a special upload schedule for Halloween!

~ Cheers, Dashiell Mirai


	9. Under the Big Top

The circus was a welcome change from the silent gloom of Neil's room, if a tad chaotic. Though he gripped Manny's hand like a lifeline as they walked through the crowd, his gaze swept from left to right, crater-like sockets taking in everything.

Morteville was such a strange place, he couldn't tell the audience from the sideshow freaks. Strange, exotic smells wafted through the place, like the grass and dew from the field the tent was in, exotic sweets and balls of dough, frying in oil, perfumes and colognes, sweat, slime, and other secretions.

Manny nudged him with a bony elbow. "Hey, Neil, let's go to our seats. I got us something... special." He winked, with the soft _snick_ of a bony eyelid.

His curiosity piqued, Neil followed as the death-god parted a flap in the tent, and climbed up a rickety wooden staircase, trying not to trip over any exposed nails.

They stepped out onto a balcony, somewhat like a theatre box, high above the crowd. They settled into their seats, somewhat uneasily, since the railing looked about as suspect as the stairs.

From his vantage point, Neil could see everything under the big top. It seemed that the entirety of Mortevillian society had come to see the show.

In the low pit near the stage, there sat the dregs of the town, outsized insects, brutal giants, trolls, and eel-men dripping slime. They swilled from tankards of foaming ale and pumpkin cider, slopping most of their drink down their fronts and onto the floor.

Meanwhile, off to the right, there was a lounge, of sorts, where the upper classes mingled. Noblemen chatted with gods, entrepreneurs mixed with minor deities, and a pink-skinned goddess of love, clad in a silver minidress and fur stole, tugged a politician along by his tie. They sipped on neon-pink cocktails, the mouths of the martini glasses breathing out vapor like liquid nitrogen.

Then, his attention was wrested away by a loud fanfare of trumpets. From between the moth-eaten velvet curtains slipped a figure in a maroon tailcoat. Slowly, the audience quieted in tandem with the dimming of the lights.

As if she had a microphone, the ringmaster boomed out over the audience, "Welcome, welcome, my dears! Under this big top, we're all old friends.

Even," Her gaze slid unnervingly over Neil's face. Or lack thereof. "The new ones."

She jerked her hungry eyes away, and clapped her gloved hands. "You know, I've been looking forward to our Morteville show for an _eternity_. You know your good friend Maggie Bludd will have something _special_ for you, won't she?" She leaned down. "So let the show... begin!" She straightened up and flung her hands high, backed by the brassy fanfare and the roar of the crowd.


	10. Clowning Around

After a pause, a single clown stepped out onstage, dressed in baggy white overalls, a poufy red wig, and oversized shoes. He held a chrome bicycle horn, the kind with a squeeze-bulb, and was looking at it with a comically puzzled sort of frustration.

He gripped the bulb with all his might, but no sound came out. Two other clowns stole up behind him, and clapped a large jug, painted with daisies, over his head. The audience burst into laughter as he struggled to pull it off his head.

As he flailed helplessly, the other two took the horn, now forgotten, and experimentally gave the bulb a squeeze.

Still, no sound came from it. One, in an exaggerated fashion, mimed that an idea had occurred to him. From with the folds of his baggy costume, he pulled an outsized mallet.

Then, with all the determination of a thousand great warriors etched on his painted face, he began to hammer away at the horn like there was no tomorrow.

The other clown, now freed from his ceramic penitentiary, stayed the hand of his more violent peer.

Two more clowns, in neon livery, emerged from the wings, and clapped a pie apiece into the faces of their onstage counterparts, and all hell broke loose.

Clowns chased other clowns around the stage, one flailing a clapper wildly and catching another on the bottom. Neil let out a small, muffled giggle. The crowd laughed uproariously, many in front tossing rotten vegetables at the stage from pails that had appeared, seemingly, out of nowhere.

Suddenly, a magician, resplendent in top hat and tails, appeared in with a bang and a flash of red sparks.

The clowns grew silent, and stood, slack-jawed, in awe. The magician flipped his hat off his head of slicked-back black hair, and presented it with a flourish.

He reached his hand, gloved in white silk, down into the hat. With an expression of intense concentration, he reached down, down into his hat, until the entire length of his arm was reaching into it.

All the audience, Neil included, leaned forwards in their seats with a collective creak almost drowning out the drumroll.

Screwing up his moustachioed face, he wrenched his hand out, gripping the bicycle horn. The clowns all made a big show of gasping, but one of them, ever so slowly, tentatively reached out and squeezed the horn.

A pathetic little wheeze escaped it.

The audience roared with laughter, and the clowns took a collective bow, while the magician took an elegant leg.

To the whistles and cheers of the crowd, the curtain drew shut, and the lights slowly dimmed.


	11. In Stitches

The ringmaster's voice piped in from somewhere. "Give a warm welcome to our very own two-headed monster, Mira and Kira!"

Standing on the stage was a person with a single body and two arms, but that was where the normalcy stopped. Halfway up, their torsos started to diverge into two separate upper halves, like the branches of a tree.

Most alarming of all was the differences between the two halves. One belonged to a teenaged boy, slender and rather effeminate. He had pale skin, dark hair pulled back in a bun, and piercing aquamarine eyes. The other half was of a girl, roughly the same age, who had red hair in a ponytail, red lipstick, and mahogany eyes. They wore a harlequin outfit of black and red patches, stitched together with shining ruby thread.

Out of a pocket at their hip, the boy pulled a folding fan made of the same material as their outfit. He unfolded it with a flourish, and began to fan himself, looking away from his other half.

"Ugh, Kira, I can't believe you did that!"

She folded her one arm against her torso.

"Yeah, well, do you think I'm happy about what _you_ did?"

They turned their faces to face opposite one another, noses pointing like arrows in the opposite direction.

"Hmph!", they said in unison.

The spotlight shone on Kira's face.

"I hate my brother!"

Mira's face was subsequently illuminated.

"I hate my sister!"

"We never get along!" At that, they both spoke.

"I like coffee, he likes tea."

"She likes the mountains, I like the sea."

"He wants to get out of bed on the left side."

"And she on the right."

"He wants to wear blue."

"And she wants wear red."

Again, a unified, "Ugh!"

A man in an acrobat's outfit, with carefully coiffed blonde hair and bright blue eyes, walked by. Mira and Kira's eyes followed him across the stage.

They both turned to glare at each other.

"He's mine!"

"No, he's mine!"

They turned away and rolled their eyes.

"Ok, ok. He's... both of ours, how does that sound?"

"Fine."

They sidled awkwardly up to him.

"Hey, uh, hot stuff."

Mira slapped his sister. "Stuff it, half-brain!"

He turned back to the muscled acrobat. "Aheh, sorry. My, uh, sister, there, is uh, a bit... y'know..." He spun a finger 'round his ear in the universal symbol for "This Person is Totally Flaming Crackers".

The acrobat seemed unfazed.

Mira continued to waffle incoherently. "What I meant was, uh, would you, I mean, if it's alright with you, and, uh, providing this here numb-nut stays quiet, heh-"

Kira backhanded him, quick as you like.

"Shut up, you anti-social twit!"

She gave the much-beleaguered tumbler a gleaming smile.

"Sorry about my brother, what I meant was, would... you..."

She trailed off, gaping as one of the dancers emerged from backstage, linked her arm with his, and walked off the stage.

The conjoined twins turned to each other, throwing their arms in the air exasperatedly.

"Augh!"

A comic piano riff sounded from offstage. The audience applauded, with scattered hoots of laughter.

A/N

Woo! I obviously don't know how to make things funny!

Right, 'til next time!

~Dashiell Mirai


	12. Little Piece of Heaven

The lights stayed dimmed, but the music struck up. It was a lively number, like a mixture of jazz and circus music, combining the blare of horns with the breathing of an accordion.

In time with the music, Margaret announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to our very own... Ashtaroth, the She-Devil!"

A young woman strutted out onto the stage, and the audience gasped. She sported a jet-black forties pinup-style hairdo, wore a slinky red dress with a high slit in the skirt, and looked like she should've been wearing tall pumps to match.

On the contrary, though, she was barefoot. Or, rather, bare-hoofed.

Her be-tighted legs ended in cloven black hooves, like a goat might have. A pair of spiraling jet ram's horns sprouted from her scalp. There were no seam lines, no glue, no nothing. It all looked completely real. She shimmied up to the microphone, and took it in her red-gloved hands. She sang:

"What's the big idea 'bout corruption

They keep preachin' 'bout the mortal sin

I just know about seduction

The fallen paragon to draw me in, oh

Baby, you're a perfect angel

That's plain to see.

The mad man in you,

It put the devil in me."

She sashayed across the stage, hooves clicking like tap shoes.

Manny craned forwards in his seat. "Will you look at that!"

The audience was mesmerised by the way she danced. The beaded fringe of her dress swayed and clicked together when she moved her hips, and it seemed that nearly every man, several women, and many creatures of indeterminate gender wore a dreamy expression on their faces.

The music swelled to a crescendo, with her voice trying to stay heard above it, and then came to rest in a grand finale, with her doing a split across the stage.

The audience applauded wildly, and many threw roses, which were quickly snatched away by the circus custodians.


	13. Blue and Blood

The audience had hushed, waiting in the near-darkness.

All evidence of the previous act had vanished, and out onstage was a small figure. A bluish spotlight shone on his upturned face.

It was a boy, circa Neil's age, with royal-blue hair and perfect alabaster skin. He was dressed in an outsized straitjacket, the color of age-yellowed tile.

From the sidelines, a lone fiddle started to scrape out a tune.

The spotlight followed a spindly, long-nosed man in a tuxedo, carrying a silver-domed dish in one hand, and a linen napkin draped over the other arm. He set the dish down in front of the boy, and pulled off the lid with a flourish.

A bloodied human arm sat on the shining platter.

Neil gasped, a soft gasp of revulsion that echoed, alone, off into the dark.

The boy lowered his head to the plate, and began to gobble the arm down like a wolf to its kill.

He raised his head back up, slowly, in time with a disjointed fiddle chord that was the same pitch as his empty, wide blue eyes and bloodstained mouth.

Manny directed his commentary to his young companion.

"Kai the Blueblooded's show hasn't been this good in years... Neil? Hey, Neil, listen when I'm talkin' to ya!"

But Neil wasn't listening. He had his head in his hands, sockets squinched tight. He was rocking back and forth gently, trying to block out the memory of that boy's bloodstained smile.

Manny leaned forwards, intently. The band struck up, an accordion playing with its chords like inhaling and exhaling, and the trills of a honky-tonk piano.

The spindly waiter brought another platter, this one dripping blood onto the stage as he carried it. He set it before Kai, and opened the lid to reveal a bloody mass of entrails, like snarled-up sausage links covered in gore.

Manny gasped in delight watching him wolf down his grisly meal like an ice-cream sundae.

The music picked up as the waiter brought out the newest course.

Sitting on the platter, glistening wetly in the spotlight, was a human heart. It still pulsed weakly, god knows how they did it, as life drained torpidly from it.

The small cannibal licked his porcelain-smooth lips.

Neil, who had looked up out of sheer morbid curiosity, quickly ducked back down, as if in fear that the little boy on stage might eat him.

His nails dug into his scalp as he covered his ears, trying to block out that sordid music keeping time with Kai's fleshy-sounding chewing.

Manny, half-transfixed with the show onstage, offered Neil a distantly comforting pat on the head.

He stayed like that, huddled and crying, while the audience clapped and some attendant mopped the bloody effluvia off the stage.

A/N

Well, wasn't that just lovely? This is probably the closest I'll ever get to horror, since I'm not a horror writer, nor do I care for the genre overmuch.

~Stay tuned, from ya boi Dash


	14. The Nightingale's Sweet Cry

A/N

This is the main event, lads, are you ready? Things go _down_ in this chapter.

I realise it's not actually Halloween at the moment, but where I am, it's essentially Halloween, because who wants to go trick-or-treating on a weekday? Yes, I know, according to the birthdate in my profile, I should be too old for trick-or-treating, to which I say, "Who are you, my mum?" I will only stop getting free candy from strangers when you pry that pail from my cold, dead hands!

And even then, good luck, because I will have glued it to my cold, dead hands.

(Cookie if you get the reference.)

Ok, without further odd ramblings from me, have fun!

Gradually, the crowd's noise died down, rather awkwardly, as if they expected the next act to immediately spring out at them. Somewhere offstage, Margaret said, "Please welcome to the stage... The lovely miss Nightingale, from the _human_ realm."

The audience oohed softly, with a few scattered titters.

Then, slowly, a single bright white spotlight began to shine. And then, a willowy blonde girl stepped out.

She was dressed rather singularly, in a shining saree of aqua and sea-green, her eyes framed by a a veil. She took its edge, and pulled the delicate veil off her face.

Neil gave a sharp gasp.

He knew her! Of that, there was no doubt.

Manny, hearing his charge's gasp, asked, "Neil? Somethin' wrong?"

No response. Neil was already leaning intently over the balcony's railing. The girl didn't seem to notice him.

Her eyes turned beseechingly up to the spotlight, she began to sing sweetly.

"It rained, poured, rained so hard. Rained so hard all day...

'Til all the boys in all the school came out to talk and play."

"They tossed the ball, again so high. Then again so low..."

She leapt up, gracefully, then swayed low to the ground as she sang.

"'Til it fell into a flower garden," she sang, her expression serious, "where no one's allowed to go." She wagged her finger slowly, like a storyteller recanting a cautionary tale to a group of children.

Neil stood, mesmerized, watching her sway and turn with the music. It was like a storyteller dancing to a twisted waltz, and the tale sounded cruelly familiar, though he could not place how.

The music ramped up to a crescendo in the break, the pluck of a guitar crying to be heard over the blue chords of a harp and the vinyl-static drive of an electric piano.

The girl swayed and bent, and as the music slowly dropped off, she began to sing, softly, backed by the harp and a snare, soft like rain on a wooden roof.

"Bury the bible at my feet, and the testament at my head...

If my dear father should call for me, won't you tell him that I am dead."

She said the last line with such resignation it made tears well up in Neil's sockets.

"Bury the bible at my head, and the testament at my feet,

If my dear mother should call for me, won't you tell her that I'm-"

Her voice died out suddenly, and the music ground to a halt.

Her eyes, wide with shock, relief, and countless other emotions, too many to name, locked with Neil's.


	15. Reunion

Neil's sockets widened impossibly, and his grip on the railing tightened twofold. Unfortunately, the railing, which looked to be made of plywood and rusty nails, buckled like so much scrap under his slight weight. A gasp came from the audience as he fell from the balcony, arms pinwheeling.

He landed with a sickening crunch on the pile of wood, and the whole audience, especially Manny, winced. He pulled himself up, but was nearly knocked back down when the girl rushed from the stage, and blindsided him in a hug. Dazed, he heard her say something, but couldn't quite make it out.

After a few seconds had dragged on, she let him go, and held him at arms length by his shoulders.

"Neil, what...? What happened to you?"

He closed his eyes. Too much was happening, too fast. His thoughts were in conflict, chattering contradicting messages in his ears. This girl was a stranger, unknown to him, but she was so _familiar_. He knew her, he _cared_ about her...

But he had never seen her before.

A muffled whisper broke from him, like a sob.

"Ellie."

All she heard was a hushed, "Mmmf."

She frowned. "Neil? What-"

A loud crescendo of music blared through the tent, cutting her off mid-sentence. Margaret's voice cut through the sickeningly dreamy swell of violins. "And there you are, folks! Our dancing girl, reunited with her true love... isn't it just delightful?"

The audience burst out into abounding applause. The grizzled eel-men in the front row pawed tears from their many eyes, and the pink-skinned minx at the bar swiped away a dainty droplet that threatened to ruin her eyeliner.

Meanwhile, the ringmaster threw her arm around the two kids, and hissed in their ears, "You two punks are coming with me!"

Her nails were like vulture's claws as they dug into Neil's shoulder. She smiled and waved at the audience, sidling backwards all the while. When they were but a few centimetres from the tent flap, she whisked the two miscreants outside with her. Ellie fidgeted in discomfort, held tight by Margaret, so close that the madwoman's breath was thick in her nostrils. Though he had no nostrils, Neil balked at the stench.

"Listen," she began, "I don't know what the hell you kids think you're doing, but I'm not going to just stand there and let you ruin my show."

She took two steps backwards, slowly.

"Fortunately, I have a suitable punishment in mind."

Her hand whipped out and cupped Neil's chin, her vulture-like nails digging into his cheek.

"You know... I've never had a faceless freak before."

Her face lit up in a mad grin, all pointed teeth.

"It looks like I'm adding acts to my show left and right, isn't that right, miss Nightingale?"

Rooted to the spot with fear, it was all Ellie could to do nod.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you. I need that preciously freakish face of yours unmarred, you know."

She turned slowly to Ellie, her eyes like fiery chips of emerald.

"But you, little miss, could do to learn some humility. Perhaps a cage would teach our little bird a lesson instead, hmm?"

Neil stood there, trembling with rage and fear, his fists balled.

"Oh, you look ever so tense, my sweet."

She waved her hand dismissively.

"Niyara, Sheru, take them away."

A burly acrobat clamped his arms across Neil's body, dragging him away. He would have kicked and screamed, but his grip was viselike and his limbs like forged iron. Out of the corner of his socket, he saw an identical tumbler forcing Ellie into a wrought-iron cage.

He was released, grunting and screaming furiously, into a windowless, unadorned carriage. The door slammed behind him. He lay there on the floor, tears welling up and spilling out of his sockets.

The purple-grey light faded to midnight blue as his own sobbing lulled him into a fitful sleep.

A/N

So, er, sorry, but I'm going to be taking a bit of a break. Writing-wise, I'm a busy man, and I'm taking time to work on a passion project of mine.

~Cheers, Dashiell Mirai


End file.
